The Comfort of the Spirit

And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.” — LUEE ii. 26,

“MHAT is a symbol of what the Spirit; always reveals. It never tells me what is false to nature. It does not say that I shall be exempted from the common lot of man. It does not promise that I shall ‘not see death. It says that I shall not see death until I have seen something else that will make death indifferent to me. I am not to be freed from the calamities of other men; I am not to expect such freedom. But I am to expect that in my case these calamities shall be preceded in the heart by another visitor who shall meet them at the door and rob them of their sting. They shall open the door with the hands of Esau, but it is with the voice of Jacob that they shall enter in, for their presence shall be anticipated by another Presence before whose power their roughness shall be smooth.

Spirit divine, reveal this light to me. I do not ask a cure from without; I ask a remedy from within. I claim not the chariot of fire, I beseech Thee only for the rod and the staff. I pray not for the path of flowers remote from the dwellings of human care; I only ask that ere I tread the thorns my shoes may be iron and brass. I seek not to build my tabernacle on a mount of dazzling light while the multitude toil and fret in the dark valley below; I only desire the strength to work without sense of toil and to serve much without being cumbered ‘by the service. Reveal to me my own possibilities of doing and of bearing. Help me to meet to-day the things that I feared yesterday. Give me the garment of praise in the scenes once traversed with the spirit of heaviness. I shall not fear to see the inevitable valley of death, if first I shall behold my immortality in the face of the Lord’s Christ.